A eugoogley: Just because male models are God's most perfect creations, with chiseled abs and stunning features, doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight accident. And about the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good and Want To Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too architectural model: WHAT IS THIS?! A CENTER FOR ANTS?! How can you expect kids to learn to read if they can't even fit in the building!

Two Sundays ago, on the way into the church service, I stop by the young adult ministry table and see a flyer, Sky Diving. Yeah, I think to myself, that definently sounds like my kind of thing. With that, I filed it into the back of the mental filing cabinet. Come the following Thursday, at the young adult meeting, The Portico, I find that the deposit for the jump is $50, and that that very Thursday was the last day to pay the deposit. Thinking, thinking, pondering, should I go, should I not go? ... mmmm, nah. By now, I was feeling slightly indulgent for having too much fun in life (it can't possibly be this good! this much enjoyment is illegal, isn't it?), having just gotten back a week before from a wonderful Alaskan cruise. On a whim, I checked my wallet, and found I had 3 bills, two 20s and a 10. Hrm, that equals ... umm ... $50 on the spot. Dang, this is awfully compelling now, what are the chances I have that exact amount on my person? I think, could God be opening the door for more cool stuff in my life??? Eh, or maybe this is just my flesh seeking more thrills? I know that God is for me, and not against me, but I'm so used to beating myself up over these years (self-critical personality), that I still often find it difficult to simply believe and trust in the kindness and goodness of God, and in particular, toward someone like me. Even in expressions such as this. In the meantime, I meet a new friend at the Portico named Willy. We brought up the upcoming sky diving event, and Willy mentions to me that he really wanted to go sky diving this time, but unfortunately he came into some unexpected financial troubles. The service starts, and on and off during this time, I try to pray and discern what God wants me to do in this situation. Finally, I come to the point where I'm like, OK, I've really been having a boatload of fun recently, I think I can pass up this opportunity (even though I'd really really kinda like to go do something crazy). God, if I see Willy again tonite, I'll pay his deposit for him and he can go have a good time. I believe I have exactly $50 for your reasons, so may you fill and bless his time there. After the service, I look to and fro for brother Willy, but he's nowhere to be found. Hmm, so now what? God, thank you, if you want me to go! But, umm, can you give me some sort of confirmation or something? I decide to pull aside an awesome young lady named Theresa, who was my prayer partner during prayer time and ask her, "Can I ask for your discernment on a matter?" and proceeded to explain my desire to go. She gets an OK signal. I find amazing the very simple truth that God knows us intimately, the desires of our hearts, and the way we've been created - he knows me! And he authored a path for me to go jump out of a plane, because he made me just a little crazy like that. Anyway, that's the short long version of how this happened, and so today, waking up at 4:30 in the a.m., I head out for my date with gravity. ... and so ... I just jumped out of an airplane from 14,000 ft. today. What a rush! Also bought a video tape of my jump and met a lot of very wonderful people.

E-mail wars! Back to back in my yahoo mailbox: From Amazon.com: Important test at Amazon.com

Starting today, as a long-term test, you can get Free Super Saver Shipping on orders over $49. Previously, only orders over $99 qualified. Reducing the ordering hurdle to $49 makes it much easier for customers to get free shipping--more people will qualify and qualify more often ...

the very next e-mail, from Buy.com: HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Dear Eric, Amazon claims they 'lowered the hurdle' with their free shipping offer….at buy.com we just ran that hurdle over with our free-shipping truck: Free Shipping with NO MINIMUM PURCHASE.

That ... is funny! One-ups-manship at its finest. On the e-mail note, I've been getting the klez virus in my inbox pretty frequently, all from mail.utexas.edu. Wonder if anyone else is seeing a lot of that?

Work is really really boring today. I'm not sure why this happens - the ups and downs. I have a few issues to work, but they seem so terribly inconsequential (He who is faithful with little is also faithful with much). I guess the better thing would be for me to learn to appreciate even these too. Anyway, out of my boredom, and the recent stink some of my female friends have made over certain teenybopper heroes and their oh-so-interesting dating lives, I took an AIM poll, asking the question, "britney spears, hot or not?" (shows you how pathetically poor work is today) Now, I personally find her quite unattractive. I thought my tastes were more or less mainstream, but let's see what the polls have to say ... check it out:

THE MEN: frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? DuaneKnesek: y DuaneKnesek: talented? N frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? alveysinger: very hot. i own the las vegas show dvd. it's a permanent fixture in the dvd rotation. frenchiesmustard: HAHAHA frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? ja5on y3h: hot, in a not kind of way ja5on y3h: but over all hot frenchiesmustard: wait, what? ja5on y3h: hot! frenchiesmustard: ok frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? chinawildman: hhhhot frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? DjDruhill: afraid not frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? dgoh78: hot dgoh78: sex appeala frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? icuclessi: HOT! icuclessi: haha frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? ll vls ll: typical blonde girl frenchiesmustard: so, hot or not? ll vls ll: not I guess frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? momoboyy: HELLA HOT momoboyy: GO KOREA!! momoboyy: WOO HOO!! frenchiesmustard: HAHA! frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? AND9876: i went to see her in concert AND9876: she's pretty hot NOT MEN: frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? waysquared: hot! frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? ppt1020: hot as in her body? frenchiesmustard: *shrug* frenchiesmustard: in whatever sense you'd like ppt1020: well i think she's got a good body but she doesn't fit my definition of hot frenchiesmustard: britney spears, hot or not? almond milk tea: hahaha almond milk tea: uhm almond milk tea: in the middle almond milk tea: not as hot

Final count of today's informal poll: (male count)      HOT = 8      NOT HOT = 2 Ladies and gentlemen, the polls are closed, the count is in. Apparently I was very wrong. According to the registered voting block of My Buddy List (remember My Buddy? That freaky chucky-lookin doll with the catchy theme song that used to come on TV all the time? My buddy .... my buddy ... Wherever I go, he goes ... my buddy ... my buddy ... I’ll teach him everything I know…) Britney Spears is officially hot, by a landslide. *sobbing & weeping for humanity* By the way, I only counted the male votes because this entire poll stemmed from a discussion with Claire about the receptiveness of britney amongst men. The few female comments were thrown in for good measure, but not counted against the final total. I think my gripe with her alleged hotness is not so specific with britney, rather its the same gripe that some people have with much of top 40 music in general. It's way too manufactured (barf), way too packaged, and very unreal. Similiarly, britney has been handed an image to convey, and she's gone out and done a mediocre job of it. Nothing extraordinarily hot about that. On that note, thanks everyone for participating in the poll. May you guys have an awesome awesome day, and take everything here with a fat grain of salt. k thx bye.

It's good to be alive. Grace sends her shoutout to everybody from Dallas (yesterday) and Hong Kong today! She's very excited and having a good time so far. I really like writing, its such a wonderful thing, to express, to create ideas and pictures. I like haiku too, its fun to do, you should try it too, if your favorite color is blue, or you lost your left shoe. I'm gonna go eat and then write stuff on here later tonite. P34CE 0UT.

Musical Progression (or, Make Up Your Frickin Mind Buddy) (or, An Ongoing Nightmare in a CSS2 World)

legend: red genres have stayed in strong favor black genres are still nostalgic and acceptable blue genres have lost favor dates & eras may not be entirely even be remotely accurate

elementary school 1) the first song Wham - Wake me up before you go go; in Los Angeles,CA, watched with cousin wei-wei on MTV 2) 80s pop Michael Jackson, Def Leppard, Weird Al, Kokomo, Bobby Brown,etc; with cousin Andy 3) new wave Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Anything Box, the Cure, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, etc middle school 4) 90s pop Martika, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Milli Vanilli, etc 5) heavy metal Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeath, Judas Priest, Ozzy Ozbourne, etc (the skater days) high school 6) classic rock/hard rock Rush, the Doors, Led Zepplin, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Faith No More, etc 7) rap Cypress Hill (puff puff), Snoop, Dr. Dre, Ahmad, Ice Cube, Bone Thugs & Harmony, etc 8) mainstream (i.e. radio) house music "Sweet Dreams remix", Nightcrawlers, Artie the 1 Man Party, etc college 9) a bit less mainstream (i.e. non-radio) house music Sasha, Armand Van Helden, etc. 10) chinese music Faye Wong, Jackie Cheung, Alex To, etc. 11) trance Kay Cee, Paul Van Dyk, Chicane, BT, etc. 12) r&b and slow jams Peter Cetera, Babyface, Jon B, Luther Vandross, Maxwell, Jagged Edge, Art of Noise, etc. after college 13) nujazz acid jazz stuff (no idea who the artists are)

Daniel's at work with me today, and for lunch we went to the KSBJ brown-bag lunch at Chick-Fil-A on 1960. Watermark ...

Work is slow today, so I'll just jot a few thoughts before I head home. Had a wonderful time at church (yesterday) in the morning. Went to indoor rock climbing gym for the first time yesterday. It was pretty challenging- requires a lot of forearm and finger strength and endurance. I'm lookin forward to going back, and hopefully, to one day climb a real cliff. Just looking at the pictures at rockclimbing.com makes my heart beat fast and my hands sweat. Also tried my hand at mah-jong last night with some friends. Not for money or anything, just to learn it. Fun game. Got a lot of (big?) decisions to ponder and pray thru for the perhaps-near future. I'm reminded of that snippet I posted on my blog a few months ago by Hannah Whitall Smith, about being afraid of being in God's will. Of course it seems ridiculous when rationally thought thru, but I find myself drifting there lately regardless. Despite that, each day has been a great and wonderful experience of life. It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

I wanna go skiing!!! Ready for the weekend ... Seattle and Vancouver are beautiful places. I really like the Pacific Northwest. The rain is kinda crazy though. Another pic of our Yosemite trip ... the campground, day 1: (click to grow big!) And this is a neat picture ... (click to grow big!)

In Vancouver last week, I passed by the Kabalarian Philosophy building several times, on Oak St. I just thought that was pretty interesting. Wanted to take a picture of it, but didn't. Maybe next time.

A letter I recieved whilst on vacation ... May 24, 2002 Dear Mr. Chu: Thank you for contacting me about efforts to apply copyright royalties to music streamed over the Internet. I appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter. Under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, radio stations were granted the right to broadcast music over the Internet without having to compensate artists or music publishers until payment conditions could be determined by the U.S. Copyright Office. On December 11, 2000, the Copyright Office issued a final rule holding that broadcasts of this nature are subject to statutory licensing and are responsible for royalty payments to copyright owners. This decision was upheld in a U.S. District Court, and on February 20 of this year, the Copyright Office's Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) proposed that broadcasters pay a royalty rate of 0.14 cents per composition that is streamed over the Internet. While I am not a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has primary jurisdiction over this issue, you may be sure that I will keep your comments in mind should relevant legislation be considered by the full Senate. I appreciate having the opportunity to represent you in the United States Senate. Thank you for taking the time to contact me. Yours respectfully, PHIL GRAMM United States Senator me: Apparently, the initial CARP proposal was rejected as of May 21, 2002. For more info, of course, one can go here: www.saveinternetradio.org.